Genealogical Continuity Research Articles

Borderland Anxieties: Lisān al-Dīn ibn al-Khaṭīb (d. 1374) and the Politics of Genealogy in Late Medieval Granada

This article seeks to contribute to larger scholarly conversations about the construction and deployment of difference in medieval borderland societies. It examines the ways in which genealogical notions of “Arabness” [ʿurūbiyyah], which expressed Islamic identity in terms of Arab lineage, structured the process of identity formation in Nasrid Granada (1232–1492). Through a close reading of the works of the Nasrid scholar-statesman Lisān al-Dīn ibn al-Khaṭīb (d. 1374) and his intellectual-political network, the article explores how Nasrid elites incorporated “Arabness” into the articulation of a local identity rooted in ethnic cohesion, religious exclusivity, and genealogical continuity. It argues that this constituted a particular strategy of identification that sought to differentiate Nasrid Granada from its neighbors and demarcate the boundaries between al-Andalus, Christian Iberia, and the Maghrib, even as these regions came to be tied even more closely together through political, intellectual, social, and mercantile networks between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. The article concludes with a consideration of the “racialization of religion” and the manner in which Ibn al-Khaṭīb integrated ideas about environmental determinism and physiognomy, alongside genealogy, to represent the religious and cultural traits of the inhabitants of Granada as fixed, immutable, and heritable characteristics, the product of both lineage and environment. Through an examination of the racialized production of difference within the dynamic borderland context of late medieval Iberia, this article seeks to invite broader comparative approaches that integrate the medieval Islamic world into discussions about race, racialization, and ethnicity in the Middle Ages.

The traditionality and uniqueness of the “Gorogli” series in the epic of “Tarkibadakhshon”

This article discusses the Gorogly epics, their popularization within the series, ideological and artistic features, the world of images, the Uzbek Gorogly epics, traditionalism in the Tarkibadakhshon epic characteristic of the Gorogly cycle, signs indicating traditionality, their originality, in general, expressed scientific and theoretical views on the plot elements, the ideological basis of the epic, its place in the epic of the genealogical continuity Avazkhan, its significance in the Uzbek national version.

On the so-called “genealogical continuity” in the development of German classical idealism

Румянцева Т. Г. Про так звану «генеалогiчну спадкоємнiсть» у розвитку нiмецького классичногоiдеалiзму. – Стаття.У статті аналізується відтворена в радянській історико-філософській та навчальній літературі схема про «генеалогічну наступність», цілісність та наявність іманентної логіки в розвитку німецької класичної філософії. При цьому вважалося, що всім представникам цієї інтелектуальної традиції властиве єдине проблем- не поле, подібне розуміння системоутворювальних фундаментальних ідей і понять. Показано, що знайомство з новітніми науковими розробками та архівними даними останніх десятиліть істотно змінили образ німецької класики, що дає нам змогу стверджувати пронадмірну спрощеність такого роду схеми, її неповну відповідність реальному стану справ, згідно з якитрадиція німецького ідеалізму постає швидше «у строкатому різноманітті версій розгортання філософського дискурсу». У статті показана також ідеологічна ангажованість енгельсівського, так званого «сходового», тлумачення розвитку німецької класичної філософії,згідно з яким кожен наступний за Кантом її представник позиціонувався як такий, що перевершує за результатами свого попередника, а всі догегелівські системи розглядалися тільки як підготовка до створенняспочатку гегелівської, а потім і марксистської філософії. Гегель у цій схемі поставав як вінець всього німецького ідеалізму, а, відповідно, Маркс і Енгельс – як вершина всієї німецької філософської думки як такої.Автор висловлює думку про те, що нині досить проблематично стверджувати не лише про «генеалогічну наступність» у розвитку німецької класики, а й про місце І. Канта, як родоначальника подальших ідеалістичних систем І. Фіхте, Ф. Шеллінга та Г. Гегеля. Показано специфіку кантівської реформи метафізики, яка була радикально відкинута його послідовниками,починаючи вже з Фіхте, який здійснив її переродження на діалектичній основі; розкрито також особливості розуміння Кантом діалектики, яку жодною мірою не слід змішувати з гегелівською або з марксистською їїверсією. Це зовсім не применшує роль і значення великого кенігсберзького мислителя, а, навпаки, свідчить про унікальність його вчення, завдяки якому філософія набула духу ґрунтовності і критичності. Таким чином, ми можемо більш скрупульозно і точно підходити нині до аналізу історико-філософського процесу, позбавляючись багатьох радянських стереотипів і штампів, що мали, зокрема, ідеологічно ангажований характер.

Transformative Genealogies: Childbirth and Crises of Succession in Athelston

In medieval historical narratives, including chronicles and many romances, violent and explicit scenes of childbirth often accompany political upheaval or dramatic genealogical changes. In such scenes, childbirth—including pregnancy, labor, and delivery—is frequently in tension with ideal agnatic succession, erupting into the narrative at moments of patrilineal disruption or ambiguity, such as illegitimacy, the loss of patrimonial lands, and the lack of a direct male heir. This essay examines how representations of women's child-bearing provide a means of genealogical transformation, particularly during disruptions in succession. It focuses on the late fourteenth-century romance Athelston, with reference to royal genealogical rolls, the Beaufort/Beauchamp Book of Hours, and the Wilton Diptych, situating these sources in late medieval political and genealogical challenges, including Richard II's tumultuous reign and non-agnatic ascension and succession, and Anne of Bohemia's childlessness. In particular, it examines the tension in representations. In Athelston, whose narrative crisis and climax involve horrific violence toward and political action by royal pregnant women, this tension between the mother's role in producing an heir and the urgent embodiedness of child-bearing allows both genealogical continuity and sudden change. The essay argues that prominent childbearing characters and detailed acts of childbirth in medieval texts, particularly those concerned with genealogy, often show how women not only contribute to an existing genealogy but imbue it with types of authority that are new and possibly radically different from male primogeniture.

Mito e storia nella mitografia di età imperiale: Lico πολέμαρχος (Apollod., <em>Bibl</em>. III 41)

[it] Il racconto della conquista del potere a Tebe da parte di Lico, fornito dalla Biblioteca, presenta alcuni elementi che sembrano far riferimento a istituti propriamente politici. L’elezione a polemarco, in particolare, può alludere a eventi storici della Beozia di IV secolo a. C. Tale allusione rappresenta un chiaro anacronismo rispetto all’universo che fa da sfondo ai racconti del mitografo, ma, in questo caso, non risulta estranea allo sviluppo narrativo della sezione in cui si trova inserita. Evidenziando una differenza qualitativa tra la sovranità legittima dei Cadmei e quella illegittima di Lico, Zeto e Anfione, il riferimento alla polemarchia contribuisce al piano compositivo dello ps. Apollodoro, che si fonda sulla continuità genealogica. Per tale ragione, l’anacronismo può essere qui considerato il risultato di una scelta autoriale, che mostra come anche i mitografi abbiano giocato un ruolo nell’iterazione tra tempo mitico e passato storico che si riscontra all’interno delle loro opere.

Mechanistic philosophies of development: Theodor Boveri and Eric H. Davidson

Theodor Boveri’s (1862-1915) and Eric Davidson’s (1937-2015) achievements represent thoroughly two quite distant time frames in the history of the mechanistic approaches to development, that Jane Maienschein (2014) has characterized respectively as the era of the “experimental embryo” and of the “computed embryo”. Nonetheless, Davidson’s special bond to Boveri is meant to emphasize the genealogical continuity of an embryological tradition of mechanistic philosophy that, differently from molecular biology, is committed to an explanation of the hereditary transmission of organization. Davidson’s genealogical claim is reconsidered through a contextualized analysis of the function of machine-like models and of the role of experiment in the making of their respective mechanistic philosophies. This analysis may help to shed light on resilience and change in the understanding of a mechanistic approach to development.

The female ancestor's tale: Long-term matrilineal continuity in a nonisolated region of Tuscany.

With the advent of ancient DNA analyses, it has been possible to disentangle the contribution of ancient populations to the genetic pool of the modern inhabitants of many regions. Reconstructing the maternal ancestry has often highlighted genetic continuity over several millennia, but almost always in isolated areas. Here we analyze North-western Tuscany, a region that was a corridor of exchanges between Central Italy and the Western Mediterranean coast. We newly obtained mitochondrial HVRI sequences from 28 individuals, and after gathering published data, we collected genetic information for 119 individuals from the region. Those span five periods during the last 5,000 years: Prehistory, Etruscan age, Roman age, Renaissance, and Present-day. We used serial coalescent simulations in an approximate Bayesian computation framework to test for continuity between the mentioned groups. Our analyses always favor continuity over discontinuity for all groups considered, with the Etruscans being part of the genealogy. Moreover, the posterior distributions of the parameters support very small female effective population sizes. The observed signals of long-term genetic continuity and isolation are in contrast with the history of the region, conquered several times (Etruscans, Romans, Lombards, and French). While the Etruscans appear as a local population, intermediate between the prehistoric and the other samples, we suggest that the other conquerors-arriving from far-had a consistent social or sex bias, hence only marginally affecting the maternal lineages. At the same time, our results show that long-term genealogical continuity is not necessarily linked to geographical isolation.

The nation‐family: Intimate encounters and genealogical perversion in Armenia

ABSTRACTAnthropological theorists have often dismissed the notion of nation‐as‐family as an abstraction or as evidence of nationalist sentiment. But in postsocialist Armenia, nation is practiced as family. Everyday intimate encounters in public carry narratives of genealogical belonging and expectations based on forms of kin relation. This is particularly notable in the experiences of queer subjects—those who fail to meet the demands and expectations to belong to the nation‐family and who thus disrupt national sensibilities of propriety and genealogical continuity. Those who are genealogically perverse experience the nation‐family as unbearably intimate. This intimacy, however, makes possible acts that introduce queer difference into what national propriety means. [queer, intimacy, nation, kinship, perversion, postsocialism, Armenia]

Mitochondrial DNA Reveals the Trace of the Ancient Settlers of a Violently Devastated Late Bronze and Iron Ages Village.

La Hoya (Alava, Basque Country) was one of the most important villages of the Late Bronze and Iron Ages of the north of the Iberian Peninsula, until it was violently devastated around the 4th century and abandoned in the 3rd century B.C. Archaeological evidences suggest that descendants from La Hoya placed their new settlement in a nearby hill, which gave rise to the current village of Laguardia. In this study, we have traced the genetic imprints of the extinct inhabitants of La Hoya through the analysis of maternal lineages. In particular, we have analyzed the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region of 41 human remains recovered from the archaeological site for comparison with a sample of 51 individuals from the geographically close present-day population of Laguardia, as well as 56 individuals of the general population of the province of Alava, where the archaeological site and Laguardia village are located. MtDNA haplotypes were successfully obtained in 25 out of 41 ancient samples, and 14 different haplotypes were identified. The major mtDNA subhaplogroups observed in La Hoya were H1, H3, J1 and U5, which show a distinctive frequency pattern in the autochthonous populations of the north of the Iberian Peninsula. Approximate Bayesian Computation analysis was performed to test the most likely model for the local demographic history. The results did not sustain a genealogical continuity between Laguardia and La Hoya at the haplotype level, although factors such as sampling effects, recent admixture events, and genetic bottlenecks need to be considered. Likewise, the highly similar subhaplogroup composition detected between La Hoya and Laguardia and Alava populations do not allow us to reject a maternal genetic continuity in the human groups of the area since at least the Iron Age to present times. Broader analyses, based on a larger collection of samples and genetic markers, would be required to study fine-scale population events in these human groups.

Imagining the Future of Motherhood: the Medically Assisted Extension of Fertility and the Production of Genealogical Continuity

This article examines the ways in which the genealogical model is mobilized, challenged and / or reinforced in imaginaries related to the possibility of medically assisting the extension of female fertility and the making of older mothers. By focusing on public discourses on egg donation and egg freezing procedures, it shows firstly how oocytes may become active and visible elements in the production of genetic continuity in the female line, in contrast with genealogical thinking based on the importance of the male line. Secondly, it identifies two ambivalent figures, ‘the grandmother mother’ and the ‘radiant forties mother’, revealing the anxieties and hope associated with the extension of female fertility. It results from the analysis that gender and age are two crucial components of the genealogical model that need to be studied together when it comes to the extension of fertility time.

Genealogical relationships between early medieval and modern inhabitants of Piedmont.

In the period between 400 to 800 AD, also known as the period of the Barbarian invasions, intense migration is documented in the historical record of Europe. However, little is known about the demographic impact of these historical movements, potentially ranging from negligible to substantial. As a pilot study in a broader project on Medieval Europe, we sampled 102 specimens from 5 burial sites in Northwestern Italy, archaeologically classified as belonging to Lombards or Longobards, a Germanic people ruling over a vast section of the Italian peninsula from 568 to 774. We successfully amplified and typed the mitochondrial hypervariable region I (HVR-I) of 28 individuals. Comparisons of genetic diversity with other ancient populations and haplotype networks did not suggest that these samples are heterogeneous, and hence allowed us to jointly compare them with three isolated contemporary populations, and with a modern sample of a large city, representing a control for the effects of recent immigration. We then generated by serial coalescent simulations 16 millions of genealogies, contrasting a model of genealogical continuity with one in which the contemporary samples are genealogically independent from the medieval sample. Analyses by Approximate Bayesian Computation showed that the latter model fits the data in most cases, with one exception, Trino Vercellese, in which the evidence was compatible with persistence up to the present time of genetic features observed among this early medieval population. We conclude that it is possible, in general, to detect evidence of genealogical ties between medieval and specific modern populations. However, only seldom did mitochondrial DNA data allow us to reject with confidence either model tested, which indicates that broader analyses, based on larger assemblages of samples and genetic markers, are needed to understand in detail the effects of medieval migration.

Vague Kinds and Biological Nominalism

Among biological kinds, the most important are species. But species, however defined, have vague boundaries, both synchronically owing to hybridization and ongoing speciation, and diachronically owing to genetic drift and genealogical continuity despite speciation. It is argued that the solution to the problems of species and their vague boundaries is to adopt a thoroughgoing nominalism in regard to all biological taxa, from species to domains. The base entities are individual organisms: populations of these compose species and higher taxa. This accommodates all the important biological facts while avoiding the legacy problems of pre-evolutionary typological taxonomy, which saw species and other taxa as prior to their members. Species are however not individuals: they are spatiotemporally bounded collections, which are plural particulars.

NOBLEST <em>CHARIS</em>: PINDAR AND THE SCHOLIASTS

In a certain sense, this might be seen as the last link in that chain of giftexchange culture which, as an important book by Leslie Kurke has shown in detail, inspires many of Pindar’s epinician odes. Charis, in Kurke’s view, is the bond of mutual gratitude and commerce in beauty securing the genealogical and moral continuity of the aristocratic oikos; it is the mechanism by which, in the course of joyous festivals pervaded by charis, the poet, by an act of charis, repays his debt to the noble victors of Panhellenic games, themselves substantially aided in their feats by divine charis. In other words, this term codifies the community’s sharing of hierarchy, artistic ideals, and Weltanschauung, and embodies their common aspiration to immortality.

European Genetic Diversity through Space and Time

sions are nevertheless to be confirmed through further studies, as they are challenged in the next two papers by Barbujani (University of Ferrara, Italy) and Currat and Silva (University of Geneva, Switzerland), respectively. Barbujani’s favoured interpretation of the current European genetic variation is a genetic signature of a Neolithic demic diffusion process, as evidence of a Palaeolithic legacy is seriously lacking, he thinks. However, this author agrees that both a model of genealogical continuity since the Palaeolithic and a model of radical demographic replacement in Neolithic times are too simplistic to explain the current observations and should probably be combined into a mixed scenario taking different factors into account like geographic heterogeneity and cultural shifts. Currat and Silva’s claims are more extreme as, for these authors, a great part of the current European diversity clearly traces back to pre-Neolithic times. By reviewing several publications using a spatially explicit simulation framework, they explain how clinal genetic patterns may result from various phenomena, including allele surfing, which could have occurred at different prehistoric periods, were they Neolithic, Mesolithic or Palaeolithic. To reach some consensual scenario between different scholars, the authors underline the need to integrate both ancient and modern DNA data in spatial simulation approaches. This special issue of Human Heredity has been stimulated by a scientific meeting held in Geneva, Switzerland, in January 2013 as the closing conference of a European COST Action (BM0803), also supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation. The main objective of the conference was to round up our knowledge on the genetic diversity and origins of European populations, by taking into account both ancient and modern molecular data and sophisticated data analyses and computer simulation methods that have been developed in the last few decades within the frame of population genetics. As suggested by the subtitle of this issue, the questions we address(ed) are related both to the demographic history of European populations, a subject still at the centre of a heated scientific debate, and to the clinical consequences and implications of such a history, in terms of risk factors in both natural and clinical contexts. To start with, Deguilloux and Mendisco (University of Bordeaux 1, France) illustrate the state of the art of Paleogenetic studies in Europe, underlining the potentials of ancient DNA for reconstructing the European past, but also its limitations due to often poor and heterogeneous sampling. A striking observation done by these authors is the genetic discontinuity between ancient and extant European populations, suggesting population replacements not only between the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods, but also between the Neolithic and today. These concluPublished online: May 21, 2014

No evidence of Neandertal admixture in the mitochondrial genomes of early European modern humans and contemporary Europeans

Neandertals, the archaic human form documented in Eurasia until 29,000 years ago, share no mitochondrial haplotype with modern Europeans. Whether this means that the two groups were reproductively isolated is controversial, and indeed nuclear data have been interpreted as suggesting that they admixed. We explored the range of demographic parameters that may have generated the observed mitochondrial diversity, simulating 3.0 million genealogies under six models differing as for the relationships among contemporary Europeans, Neandertals, and Upper Palaeolithic European early modern humans (EEMH), who coexisted with Neandertals for millennia. We compared by Approximate Bayesian Computations the simulation results with mitochondrial diversity in 7 Neandertals, 3 EEMH, and 150 opportunely chosen modern Europeans. A model of genealogical continuity between EEMH and contemporary Europeans, with no Neandertal contribution, received overwhelming support from the analyses. The maximum degree of Neandertal admixture, under the model of gene flow supported by nuclear data, was estimated at 1.5%, but this model proved 20-32 times less likely than a model without any gene flow. Nuclear and mitochondrial evidence might be reconciled if smaller population sizes led to faster lineage sorting for mitochondrial DNA, and Neandertals shared a longer period of common ancestry with the non-African's than with the African's ancestors.

Inferring Genealogical Processes from Patterns of Bronze-Age and Modern DNA Variation in Sardinia

The ancient inhabitants of a region are often regarded as ancestral, and hence genetically related, to the modern dwellers (for instance, in studies of admixture), but so far, this assumption has not been tested empirically using ancient DNA data. We studied mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variation in Sardinia, across a time span of 2,500 years, comparing 23 Bronze-Age (nuragic) mtDNA sequences with those of 254 modern individuals from two regions, Ogliastra (a likely genetic isolate) and Gallura, and considering the possible impact of gene flow from mainland Italy. To understand the genealogical relationships between past and present populations, we developed seven explicit demographic models; we tested whether these models can account for the levels and patterns of genetic diversity in the data and which one does it best. Extensive simulation based on a serial coalescent algorithm allowed us to compare the posterior probability of each model and estimate the relevant evolutionary (mutation and migration rates) and demographic (effective population sizes, times since population splits) parameters, by approximate Bayesian computations. We then validated the analyses by investigating how well parameters estimated from the simulated data can reproduce the observed data set. We show that a direct genealogical continuity between Bronze-Age Sardinians and the current people of Ogliastra, but not Gallura, has a much higher probability than any alternative scenarios and that genetic diversity in Gallura evolved largely independently, owing in part to gene flow from the mainland.

Genealogical Discontinuities among Etruscan, Medieval, and Contemporary Tuscans

The available mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) data do not point to clear genetic relationships between current Tuscans and the Bronze-Age inhabitants of Tuscany, the Etruscans. To understand how and when such a genetic discontinuity may have arisen, we extracted and typed the mtDNAs of 27 medieval Tuscans from an initial sample of 61, spanning a period between the 10th and 15th century AD. We then tested by serial coalescent simulation various models describing the genealogical relationships among past and current inhabitants of Tuscany, the latter including three samples (from Murlo, Volterra, and Casentino) that were recently claimed to be of Etruscan descent. Etruscans and medieval Tuscans share three mitochondrial haplotypes but fall in distinct branches of the mitochondrial genealogy in the only model that proved compatible with the data. Under that model, contemporary people of Tuscany show clear genetic relationships with Medieval people, but not with the Etruscans, along the female lines. No evidence of excess mutation was found in the Etruscan DNAs by a Bayesian test, and so there is no reason to suspect that these results are biased by systematic contamination of the ancient sequences or laboratory artefacts. Extensive demographic changes before AD 1000 are thus the simplest explanation for the differences between the contemporary and the Bronze-Age mtDNAs of Tuscany. Accordingly, genealogical continuity between ancient and modern populations of the same area does not seem a safe general assumption, but rather a hypothesis that, when possible, should be tested using ancient DNA analysis.

Comparing models on the genealogical relationships among Neandertal, Cro-Magnoid and modern Europeans by serial coalescent simulations

Populations of anatomically archaic (Neandertal) and early modern (Cro-Magnoid) humans are jointly documented in the European fossil record, in the period between 40 000 and 25 000 years BP, but the large differences between their cultures, morphologies and DNAs suggest that the two groups were not close relatives. However, it is still unclear whether any genealogical continuity between them can be ruled out. Here, we simulated a broad range of demographic scenarios by means of a serial coalescence algorithm in which Neandertals, Cro-Magnoids and modern Europeans were either part of the same mitochondrial genealogy or of two separate genealogies. Mutation rates, population sizes, population structure and demographic growth rates varied across simulations. All models in which anatomically modern (that is, Cro-Magnoid and current) Europeans belong to a distinct genealogy performed better than any model in which the three groups were assigned to the same mitochondrial genealogy. The maximum admissible level of gene flow between Neandertals and the ancestors of current Europeans is 0.001% per generation, one order of magnitude lower than estimated in previous studies not considering genetic data on Cro-Magnoid people.

A 28,000 Years Old Cro-Magnon mtDNA Sequence Differs from All Potentially Contaminating Modern Sequences

BackgroundDNA sequences from ancient speciments may in fact result from undetected contamination of the ancient specimens by modern DNA, and the problem is particularly challenging in studies of human fossils. Doubts on the authenticity of the available sequences have so far hampered genetic comparisons between anatomically archaic (Neandertal) and early modern (Cro-Magnoid) Europeans.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe typed the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) hypervariable region I in a 28,000 years old Cro-Magnoid individual from the Paglicci cave, in Italy (Paglicci 23) and in all the people who had contact with the sample since its discovery in 2003. The Paglicci 23 sequence, determined through the analysis of 152 clones, is the Cambridge reference sequence, and cannot possibly reflect contamination because it differs from all potentially contaminating modern sequences.Conclusions/Significance:The Paglicci 23 individual carried a mtDNA sequence that is still common in Europe, and which radically differs from those of the almost contemporary Neandertals, demonstrating a genealogical continuity across 28,000 years, from Cro-Magnoid to modern Europeans. Because all potential sources of modern DNA contamination are known, the Paglicci 23 sample will offer a unique opportunity to get insight for the first time into the nuclear genes of early modern Europeans.

Genetic variation in prehistoric Sardinia

We sampled teeth from 53 ancient Sardinian (Nuragic) individuals who lived in the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age, between 3,430 and 2,700 years ago. After eliminating the samples that, in preliminary biochemical tests, did not show a high probability to yield reproducible results, we obtained 23 sequences of the mitochondrial DNA control region, which were associated to haplogroups by comparison with a dataset of modern sequences. The Nuragic samples show a remarkably low genetic diversity, comparable to that observed in ancient Iberians, but much lower than among the Etruscans. Most of these sequences have exact matches in two modern Sardinian populations, supporting a clear genealogical continuity from the Late Bronze Age up to current times. The Nuragic populations appear to be part of a large and geographically unstructured cluster of modern European populations, thus making it difficult to infer their evolutionary relationships. However, the low levels of genetic diversity, both within and among ancient samples, as opposed to the sharp differences among modern Sardinian samples, support the hypothesis of the expansion of a small group of maternally related individuals, and of comparatively recent differentiation of the Sardinian gene pools.